00:00:04 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Tokyo. It is just about midnight here and the rain has been coming down for the last few hours. Beautiful day this morning, not so much in the afternoon and evening—it's gotten a lot cooler. And you can see in this residential neighborhood, if you look down, the cherry blossoms are already starting to fall. And this spells the end, well, almost the end. I got a light here so you can see it a little bit better. I wanted to come out here today and show you what I usually do every year, which is doing night hanami (cherry blossom viewing). Taking a light and showing you the blossoms at night—they're so much more beautiful when you come outside with the light. But this is the first time I ever did it in the rain.

00:00:56 John Daub: I love this neighborhood too because they have these canals here, some of the boats. So it gives it a really nice background for photos. Yeah, the pitter patter of the rain—it's really relaxing. You just have to keep it down because this is a residential neighborhood. After midnight, you want to be very polite to the people living around, not shine the light into their windows. But it does really look like snow, doesn't it? The first time I came to Japan, I remember going outside to an illuminated cherry blossoms festival in Okazaki in Aichi Prefecture. And it was just so stunning to see the colors, the white colors just filling the entire park. You'd look up and you just see white.

00:02:02 John Daub: And this is the most special thing about the cherry blossom season for me is to go out at night with a light and just take a look and see what they look like here. You can see it is really nice—looks like popcorn. They're probably still going to be around tomorrow, but it's not going to be the same as it was for the last 48 hours. First rain, first snow, first really strong gust of wind, and they start to fall like you're already seeing on the ground there. Welcome, everybody. So for the next 15, 20 minutes, I'm going to take you around this beautiful neighborhood and show you what's going on here. Hey, Fernando, thank you.

00:03:05 John Daub: Now, this is the little pathway that they have. And you can already see on the ground those cherry blossoms are falling all over the place. It's not the blizzard that I was expecting. Usually when it rains, it'll be a little bit more—it'll come down really right in your face, the cherry blossoms just coming with each gust of breeze, with each gust of wind. Blossoms will be falling from the cherry blossom trees, making it look like it was raining petals. It's just one of the most beautiful sights you can see in Japan. If you're here, sometimes the end is the most beautiful part of it. And here's the tree.

00:04:00 John Daub: Sometimes you have the streetlights, which helps you illuminate it. But when you bring your own light, they add like the wrong color. Beautiful tree. Night blossom viewing is the best thing that you can do when you get the cap closed on the gimbal so that water doesn't get in there. All right, let's go find another tree. Keep the light in my pocket. It is midnight now in Tokyo. So this technically could be a midnight snack run, but I'm not hungry.

00:04:59 John Daub: Oh, check this one out. Oh, this is beautiful. This is one of these shidarezakura (weeping cherry) trees, like a whispering willow. And it's pink. Let me get the light on it. Oh yeah, now you can see it. Beautiful with the light, isn't it? This one's not fully bloomed yet, so there's still some hope. Maybe in the next couple of days, it'll even get better. I don't know, I'll have to come back here. Hey, Rami, thank you. Welcome to Tokyo. Lord Reis from California, Petaluma, welcome to these quiet streets of Tokyo, the way the rain comes down.

00:06:03 John Daub: And I think if you're in any city, the best time to come out and take pictures is when it's raining, believe it or not, or right after it just rained because the reflection from the streetlights onto the ground—it's just magical. All right, there's an old shrine this way. I think it's called Sumiyoshi Shrine. And at the end of the street, you see one of the omikoshi (portable shrines) that they use in this neighborhood. They've been doing that for hundreds of years. The festival is every two years, but it's been canceled because of the pandemic. I think I might have live streamed it a couple of years ago. All right, we're going to take a right and go over to the Sumida River, which is the main area of the city. It's the main river artery to the city of Tokyo that crosses through the center.

00:07:08 John Daub: But as many of you know from the Instagram post I just put up there, Tokyo is a city of canals. And for hundreds of years before trains were around and cars, they would either have to carry it by hand or they would use the waterways for commerce. So there's a lot of canals here and some of the best and most beautiful places to see cherry blossoms—but in the canals of Tokyo, not in the parks. Wow, it's a beautiful street to take a picture. Check it out. Tsukuda is one of these old neighborhoods. There's not a lot of high-rise apartments in this part of it near the Red Bridge, but it just got this really wonderful atmosphere that time has stood still. And it's only 10 minutes from Ginza, which is crazy to have a place like this right near the most expensive.

00:08:30 John Daub: Oh my God, this is the world's largest intersection in the world. It used to be Ginza Yonchome. Let's go up to the river now. I say up because you got to go up to get down. There's loads of cherry blossoms up there. Eric Johnson in the house. April Fool's John. Do they have a variation of April Fool's Day? Not really. Nobody really celebrates it here. Japan's kind of serious. So you've seen a lot of April Fool's stuff, but April 1st though has a different purpose for Japan. It's a time of year where businesses start, the school year starts, the fiscal year starts. So it's kind of the new year in Japan for a lot of stuff—April 1st. That's sort of the significance of it, not so much for April Fool's Day.

00:09:41 John Daub: Here's a beautiful cherry blossom tree. It's hard to do with an umbrella. Let me put this away. All right. You have to have a light. You have to. I think I could turn down the intensity, which is better for the neighbors too. There you go. It's the contrast of the black behind it that makes it so stunning. That's why cherry blossoms are nice during the daytime, but it's at night that they really come alive like this. You see this? I'm guessing because people might be asleep now, we might have better signal than we've had in the past. It might be a little bit creepy, but it's sometimes worth it. A little creep is not too bad.

00:10:39 John Daub: Look at that. Oh man, I love this time of year. You can see the petals are already starting to fall. I was just here a couple days ago with Leo. Here's another whispering willow cherry blossom tree. Look at it. Wow. Not a lot of blossoms on it, but that's what makes it really beautiful. These are new branches, and I bet they're going to sprout out some beautiful green. You can see them already, the buds coming on there. Not all of them blossom, apparently—it's not 100%. So this one's going to be a late bloomer. Beautiful. The colors only come out if you have a light though, you know.

00:11:45 John Daub: All right, let's get over to the Somei Yoshino cherry blossoms. This is the Sumida River, everybody. This is where Spaceboat comes at midnight. It's not quite the same—there's no Spaceboat, there's no people. That's a sakura tree right there. And then if you turn on your light, turn the intensity up a little bit. Here we go. All right, now you can see the blossoms starting to pop a little bit. Wow, it's windy. All right, got to get rid of the umbrella. Bear with me for a second. I didn't expect this gust of wind. But the thing is, it's not blowing down the blossoms because I guess there's still some hope, maybe. This isn't the end, perhaps, because they're staying on there. But there are blossom petals on the ground here—lots of them.

00:14:23 John Daub: It is a little creepy because there's nobody out here. Sorry about the wind, I didn't expect it. Oh my gosh, I hope the audio is okay. Bear with me. It might not be long before the rain gets into the microphone anyways. Ah, the rain's getting all over the place now—it's getting messy. Afternoon, I had shorts and a t-shirt on. Now I got this on, I've got a raincoat and four or five layers. Rain, the wind. All right, hold on, I got to get my umbrella up. Whoa. All right, you can use your umbrella like a shield sometimes. One of the reasons why they're clear, so I've been told, is that you don't bump into people if you have to aim it down—you can see through them.

00:16:07 John Daub: All right, let's take a look. Here's some more cherry blossoms here. I got to put the light away because I wish I had three hands. You can see that it's bouncing around just from the wind. This is upsetting a little bit. Whew, it's cold—my hands are freezing. That's spring though, you know? That's spring in Japan. The weather, it just pivots back and forth to extremes where it feels colder now, maybe because I'm wet, than it does in the winter when you're prepared for it. And then when it's warm, feels warmer than in summer. I don't know because it's such a huge contrast. I think it was like 20, like 73 degrees this afternoon and now it's like, I don't know, close to freezing it feels like.

00:17:02 John Daub: I'm going to put the umbrella down. Look at this beautiful tree right here. Look at her. Oh wow. I'll turn the intensity of the light all the way up. I'm going to lose that umbrella. I can put the umbrella here. Look at her. Oh, this is, she's in all her glory right now and I don't think she's going to look the same tomorrow. And I'm going to put this umbrella down. And the rain is making the bark of the sakura trees even darker, which adds even more contrast. The skies never get really dark in the city because it's this city. Let's go out to Chuo Ohashi, Chuo Bridge—it's right there. Skytree is also straight ahead, but I think they turned the lights off on Skytree. Yeah, you can, they only have the red lights on there for the airplanes that might go by.

00:18:47 John Daub: They should put the, I should get an umbrella with a light on it. That's what that looks like. All right, this is what the cherry blossoms look like without the light. And then here's what it looks like with the light. See it's a big difference—you need the light. Wow. Look at the branches jutting out. Just, they must be so heavy with the petals. Look at that. Yeah, Satrio, like popcorn. Let's see if I can turn the color to make it a little warmer. There you go. That's like too red. I'm going to put this in the tree. There you go. Wow.

00:19:35 John Daub: We had an earthquake a few hours ago. You didn't feel it if you were up in Tohoku. This was a Tokyo earthquake in Chiba, Shindo 4. So we shook pretty bad. Wasn't quite like a couple of weeks ago though, but it was pretty strong. I love how the cherry blossoms dance with the wind—isn't it beautiful? How's the signal? Does it look okay? I hope we're getting a good signal strength here. Got the light out. Turn the light off for a second.

00:21:02 John Daub: I have my 8K Sony A1 to film, but the problem was that the battery died. Got to go back home to change it. See without the light, the cherry blossoms in some places are not very well lit. So even though there's like a residual light, I guess, light bouncing off the ground, it's still not the same as having a light to illuminate them. Most of the riversides here in Japan also have cherry blossoms. So you never really have to look hard to find a sakura tree in Japan—they're all over the place. All right, let's go here to the corner. I don't think the signal was so strong, but it is beautiful. Look at that. Oh my. I'm really sad that this season is finishing. Look at this beautiful tree right here. Oh wow. I got to get the light out for her.

00:22:15 John Daub: The light, it's really beautiful. If you like this, click the like button. Midnight hanami. Hanami means cherry blossom viewing. I appreciate it, guys. This is great. Thank you, Awesome Adam. Tomorrow is April Fool's Day, April 1st. The blossoms might be sticking around though—it looks like they're doing okay. The thing is, some places were late and some places were early. This sakura tree was a little bit late, so it's going to hold on maybe for another day. But the ones that bloomed early are not going to be holding on—they're going to be gone tomorrow. So places maybe down south, Osaka or Hiroshima, maybe they're closer to the end now because they have warmer temperatures a little bit further south than Tokyo.

00:23:42 John Daub: I also love the contrast of the light off of the Sumida River—it's really beautiful on the riverside. Even with the rain coming in, the pitter patter—I don't mind it too much. Thank you, Coaster Crutchfield. I love it too. Oh, we can get close to these. There's a bunch right here, right on there. Just trying to keep conversations in English, everybody, because we don't know if you're insulting. This is so funny. I appreciate it. Wow. The rain makes the blossoms heavy—another reason why sometimes they don't hang on. They're so delicate, the cherry blossoms are. You can see the lights of Tokyo Station in the distance. That's Tokyo Station, the red lights.

00:25:10 John Daub: Okay, looks like we lost the lights there. It might be the rain on the lights. On the other side, we have a lot of cherry blossoms as well that wrap all the way around the river. So this is one of the really good hidden spots. And Tokyo Skytree is... oh, you could just see in the center of your screen. Do you see it? That's Tokyo Skytree, the tallest freestanding tower in the world. I'm going to go back to the car. I'm going there in a couple of days to film, which will be really exciting. It took me months to get access to go in there and to film some of the things that I did with Tokyo Eye, which has been canceled. We can get out of the rain over here. Let's have a little talk for a second. Beautiful.

00:26:20 John Daub: I guess it's April 1st, so we can say April showers bring May flowers because it is April 1st. Technically, in Japan, we are ahead of everybody. Most people. New Zealanders are like, what? Not us. Yeah, that was great. I hope you enjoyed night hanami. Hey, Joshua, thank you for that. I will absolutely get some hot tea at home and tomorrow I'm planning to take Kanae and Leo out. Maybe not tomorrow—Kanae's got a performance with her students that she's teaching. So this weekend I'll take the family out. I appreciate that very much. The cherry blossoms though, they might hang on for the weekend. Usually if you're lucky, you get two weekends. I'm not sure, but you get two weekends out of the cherry blossom season. The wind is picking up a little. You can get two weekends out of the cherry blossoms—that's really nice. But more often than not, you get just one, and that's a shame.

00:27:17 John Daub: Hide from the wind. It's nice to get two weekends. I don't think we're going to get that. Is the window okay? I kind of worried about the sound. I didn't think I needed the microphone to push down the wind. Because the pandemic is still sort of going on here, a lot of people haven't been celebrating the festival yet and this is a shame. The only other time that we didn't celebrate sakura was 2020, 2021 and 2022—three years we didn't really have a festival feeling. And then 2011 after the Great Tohoku Earthquake, almost all cherry blossom festivals were cancelled just because there was no feeling for it, there was no cause for celebration. This was very interesting for the people that were living here. You would go to the parks and there wasn't—especially here in Tokyo—no celebrations, no festival booths. It was really somber. People, a lot of lives were lost on that day, so when the cherry blossoms came a couple of weeks later, they were cancelled. We kind of all, and we were still having a lot of aftershocks following that earthquake too.

00:28:34 John Daub: So for me this time of year reminds me of earthquakes and we just had one in Chiba. It was a magnitude 4.7 earthquake so Kanae and I just, we froze like because you could feel the P waves hit and then it rocked our house pretty good. We didn't lose anything. I held on to the LG OLED TV so they wouldn't topple over and it wasn't too bad. But we're reminded constantly that we live in a country that is full of earthquakes, full of them, where our lives could be in jeopardy at any moment. And I think that that kind of changes people's mindsets here in Japan. When you do come to visit, it is a beautiful place, but if you live here it is really different because you really are, yeah, like put yourself in jeopardy sort of. You just don't know when a big earthquake can strike like the one that was up there in Tohoku—you just don't know. It's mystery, but then that's life too, you just don't know, right?

00:29:37 John Daub: Here's a look back at Chuo Ohashi, one of the big beautiful bridges here in Tokyo. That was a natural law sense. Yeah, it was a Shindo 4 an hour ago. Wow. Yeah, we had a Shindo 3 where we were and a Shindo, like between 3 and 4, I think. I could tell. After a while, you start to get used to them—you could tell because you've been in so many of them. Yep, that's Shindo 3, Shindo 4.

00:30:13 John Daub: I get across the street here. So this month, April, we are in April, everybody. This is going to be pretty exciting. I have a trip to Hokkaido already booked. I'm going to be up there in Hokkaido going to the very extreme of Hokkaido to film a couple of episodes and a setup one that's going to be taking place in May. So this is like one of two trips to Hokkaido—Only in Japan Go is going to be doing that. And I got four main channel episodes being filmed up in Hokkaido. So that's going to be a lot of fun. I got to fly up there and rent a car. So big shout out to the Patreon supporters. Thank you so much for helping to make this series a reality like it's been for the last, I don't know, five years. I got a new cherry blossom postcard going out. And I guess because Patreon is on US time, you have 12 hours to get the Snow Monkeys postcard if that's something you're interested in. At the end of the month, they are retired.

00:31:23 John Daub: So I'm going to be doing that. And I'm hoping that I can get down to Osaka to see Kevin as well. So a lot of good episodes coming. All right, everybody, I'm going to go home, warm up, have that cup of tea and then get to editing because I got a Snow Monkey video to release shortly. Stay warm, everybody. Stay positive too. Spring is here. There's a lot to live for. And when you're going through really rough times, just all you got to do is go outside sometimes and then look at the blossoms or see spring and go to a zoo and see the animals that are in... prison? But that's not what I meant. Whenever I see the animals, I kind of get really happy too. I don't know. You can always find something. I always find something that can make me happy. But for a lot of you that have had challenging times, yeah, I completely understand. Spring is a time where you can reset, recharge, start anew. And for Japan, April 1st is that day. So I'm pretty excited to restart. Oh, I missed the light. All right. See you, everybody. Bye. Stay warm. I'll post some pictures on Instagram.